Terminates, then reinstates

HHS terminates, then reinstates, thousands of grants for substance use, mental health

The Department of Health and Human Services told grantees their projects were no longer aligned with agency priorities, then backtracked under pressure.

By Carmen Paun and Amanda Friedman

The Trump administration reversed course late Wednesday after notifying thousands of organizations across the country that their substance use recovery and mental health grants were being terminated, according to a top Democrat, a congressional aide and an administration official.

The cuts targeted discretionary grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and included youth overdose prevention and medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder, among other things.

Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement late Wednesday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had reinstated the grants.

“Congress holds the power of the purse, and the Secretary must follow the law,” she said, adding that the cuts would have eliminated programs that save lives.

The administration official and congressional aide, both granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, confirmed the reinstatement of the grants.

The cuts were expected to reduce access to services for mental health and substance use disorder nationwide and threatened to make it harder for Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement on legislation funding HHS in 2026, which includes money for SAMHSA. Funding runs out on Jan. 30 unless Congress acts.

In termination notices sent to grantees, signed by Christopher D. Carroll, principal deputy assistant secretary at SAMHSA, the agency wrote that it’s “adjusting its discretionary award portfolio, which includes terminating some of its awards, in order to better prioritize agency resources.”

Democratic lawmakers criticized Trump and Kennedy over the terminations after they came to light Wednesday.

“Kneecapping and defunding the fight against the opioid and mental health epidemics will not ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ it will put American lives on the line,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees HHS funding, in a statement.

Kennedy, who has talked about his own addiction to heroin and recovery, told Senate appropriators last May that HHS would continue to support “the most effective ways” of ending the opioid epidemic.

But he defended his efforts to fold SAMHSA into a new entity at his Department of Health and Human Services called the Administration for a Healthy America. That entity has yet to be formally created amid court challenges against it.

Some drug policy advocates said they saw the cuts as a signal that the administration is still eager to pursue that restructuring.

SAMHSA has already lost roughly half of its staff over the last year to layoffs and resignations tied to Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Recent data from the White House Office of Personnel Management showed that the agency now employs 547 people, down from 916 in 2024.